(1) Steve Rzasa on Speculative Faith – “Puppies v. Trufans: Civil War”
My short story Turncoat, set in the Quantum Mortis sci-fi universe and written with a very specific aim, was nominated this way: Last spring, Vox Day approached me about writing a short story for the Riding the Red Horse anthology. He saw it as a successor to Jerry Pournelle’s There Will be War. Since I had a genuinely good time writing the Quantum Mortis books, I agreed. Over the next few months, I brainstormed concepts, and wrote Turncoat in July.
Fast forward to December 2014 and Turncoat was released as part of Riding the Red Horse. The first I learned of the Rabid Puppies thing was when I saw Turncoat on Vox’s slate or list or helpful suggestions round-up — whatever you want to call it — in February. I thought that was nice to be considered for such an award, and vaguely read over what Rabid Puppies’ aim was. Frankly, I didn’t think they had a snowball’s chance. But then again, I knew next to nothing about the Hugos and absolutely zero about the previous Sad Puppies efforts.
Whatever the goals of both Puppy groups are/were, they were not, from my perspective, pursued with Christian views in mind. The campaigning on both sides was, in one word, brutal. Even supposing the Puppy groups were correct that they were persecuted and disregarded when it came to science fiction awards, the whole fracas is in direct violation of Paul’s admonitions in Romans 12: “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them… Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.”
The Puppy vs. Trufan war was not conducted in this fashion. There were some on both sides who conducted themselves well, but name-calling and threats dominated. I’m sure a lot of people outside the debate now think there’s a ton of crazy people reading sci-fi and fantasy.
But don’t kid yourself: this showdown was not about faith. It was about message.
(2) Sarah A. Hoyt on According To Hoyt – “Fauxtrage”
Mary Three Names, whom I don’t mean to impugn, because it’s becoming clear to me that she has an impairment that prevents her from understanding written language but has nonetheless managed to win three Hugos, leapt to a conclusion probably caused by her impairment and decided “Chicom” was a racial insult.
Now, I understand some of the younger people and those who didn’t grow up in Europe during the cold war might NOT know that Chicom is a contraction of Chinese and Communist. Not a racial slur under any way or form, but a way of specifying these were CHINESE communists, you know, not Russian Communists or Feminist Communists (you know, Mary, Femcoms, you might know some) or any other form of the repulsive ideology.
3. I assumed that @SarahAHoyt knew the full context of the word and that she was using it as a deliberate racial slur.
— Mary Robinette Kowal (@MaryRobinette) August 28, 2015
4. I apologize to @SarahAHoyt for assuming ill intent in her choice of words. She says it was not her intention, & I will trust her on that.
— Mary Robinette Kowal (@MaryRobinette) August 28, 2015
(3) True dat.
Some people vote No Award in certain categories every year because they think the category shouldn’t exist. It’s always been a protest vote.
— Catherynne M. Valente (@catvalente) August 27, 2015
(4) Vox Day on Vox Popoli – “Directly over the target”
And wait, there’s more! The SJWs are also engaged in a charity drive so that John Scalzi will read it for the audio version.
As you can see, this is a masterful rhetorical response that totally proves the falsity of the Second Law of SJW: SJWs Always Double Down. One of my friends sent me an email last night that I think aptly describes the situation. “WTF, are you PAYING these people or something?” And just to ice the crazy cake, we’ve now officially gone meta as there are now fake fake reviews being posted. And while I’m not surprised by the nature of the reaction of the science fiction SJWs to the book, I am amazed by the vehemence behind it. They are absolutely furious to see that a book unmasking them was not only published by me, but is riding the very wave of media attention that they themselves created to success. That’s the importance of the parody in their minds; if it can become even more popular than SJWs Always Lie, that will disqualify it and render it harmless, thereby relieving the stress they are presently feeling.
(5) Dave Langford in a comment on Whatever at 1:39 a.m.
$50. I’m too deaf for audiobooks but will imagine this one in my head. WITH SOUND EFFECTS.
You rock Dave!
(6) Walt Boyes on Facebook
[This is a long post, as is the Burnside post that follows. All the excepts can do is suggest why I found them of interest.]
I am neither a Puppy nor a Puppy Kicker. But as a working editor, I am appalled that an award in which nearly all the professional categories requires the services of an editor to be a successful work, something like 2400 votes were cast in opposition to ALL the editor nominees. There were several worthy nominees who were beaten by NO AWARD, in my opinion, unfairly. One comment I have seen repeated several times was that if they were worthy, they’d have won. Maybe they’ll get nominated again sometime. That’s bullshit. They WERE worthy, and they got shat upon. All you have to do is to notice that Toni Weisskopf got four times the number of votes that the winner has in the last five years to see that. Mike Resnick had the same experience in the Best Editor-Short Form category…..
Revenge attempts won’t work, and in the long run, counter-revenge attempts like the slate voting of NO AWARD (Yes, it was a slate, and there is proof that is widely available). In fact, nothing will work. The Hugos are legally owned by the WSFS Trust, and they don’t want the rest of us.
They. Don’t. Want. Us.
I don’t think the Hugos can be saved. At least, I don’t think that the puppies movement will change things. WSFS owns the Hugos. Legally, to change the Hugo system you have to change WSFS. I don’t see that happening.
At Kansas City, amendments to the WSFS constitution will be proposed (please don’t ask me how I know) that will make it even harder to inject an outside nominee into the Hugos than the amendments passed in Spokane do. The Spokane amendments will almost certainly be ratified in Kansas City, as WSFS works to make it harder to “steal” their awards. The amendments made in Kansas City will be ratified in Helsinki, at what will may possibly be a very small Worldcon. Note how few people attended the WSFS business meeting in Spokane. And only people who attend the business meeting have the right to vote on the constitution. No Award will always win in a contest of wills. It isn’t right, but it is the way the rules are rigged. Remember, WSFS _owns_ the Hugo Awards outright. It IS their football.
What is going to happen, basically, is the WSFS Hugo Committee will be given the power to reject any ballot for “wrong think” of any kind. If the puppies campaign in 2016 has legs, WSFS will react by making their control tighter. They will create a “nominating committee” which will prepare a slate (I know, Irony, thy name is WSFS) of nominees for the ballot, from a “suggestion list.”
The SMOFs, the Nielsen-Haydens, and the other PuppyKickers have the numbers and the staying power to do this. The puppies, I am afraid, do not. In order to change this, and keep it from happening, the puppies will have to deliver 300-500 committed puppy voters to Kansas City and Helsinki, in person. $50 supporting memberships won’t help here. You have to have an attending membership, and then you have to show up for the business meetings. There were on the order of 300 people attending the WSFS business meetings in Spokane at some point in the proceedings. This year, the outsiders couldn’t deliver enough votes to take the Hugos. They certainly aren’t going to be able to deliver actual butts in chairs at two successive Worldcons.
The other thing that happened this year, and will happen again, is that the PuppyKickers controlled the media. This is not because of some gigantic left wing media conspiracy. That’s bullshit. Something like six companies, all led by conservatives, and 277 conservative executives control nearly all of the media outlets in the United States. If you don’t think so, look at how comparatively right wing CNN and MSNBC have gotten in the past six months. It’s because of the fact that Nielsen-Hayden and friends knew how to issue a freakin’ press release, and did so regularly. You can see the evidence for this in the fact that all the articles online and in print kept using the same phrases and sentences over and over. That’s because they got press releases, and used them as source material. To my knowledge, the puppies didn’t issue any. They waited for the media to come to them, and by the time they did, what passed for objectivity was the Wired article last weekend….
After the money, it is all about the culture war. There are people who believe honestly and strongly that women, minorities, and sexual issues are not being addressed to their satisfaction in science fiction and fantasy. They believe that there is too much white colonialism in science fiction. Folks, the way to change people’s minds is to understand where they are, be sympathetic to their position, and slowly move them to where you want them to be. It is way too late to do that. There is a crop of writers, mostly women, some women of color, and quite a few men, both white and non-, who are committed to changing what they see as bias toward white only culture.
This is not necessarily wrongthink. Nor is it necessarily the gods’ own truth. Stop telling these young writers they are wrong, or dismissing them as some sort of weird Marxists. Some of them are amazingly gifted writers. The ones that are, write brilliant stories where their bias against white colonialism culture really doesn’t show—it is about the story, and their bias isn’t the plot, and it certainly doesn’t affect the action….
One of the puppy kickers has regularly said, “Go start your own awards.” Despite the snark and the down-nose-looking deprecation, it really is good advice.
I fully expect to be run out of here on a rail for what I’ve said.
It is hard to be neutral in this thing. My sympathies lie with both sides, but my efforts lie in getting good writing, regardless of politics, and writing well myself. I got the trebuchet from David Gerrold after the awards, because I mildly pointed out that I didn’t support, “applause is okay, booing is not.” And I mean mildly. And Gerrold and I go back a ways. I am sure there are more people on the other side (Mike Glyer for one) who think I am an unmitigated Puppy asshole. I am not, and never have been, a Puppy.
Just a note: Walt Boyes has never been mentioned in a post on File 770 before, and only in two comments, neither of which expressed any opinion about him at all.
(7) Ken Burnside – “How the Hugos Crashed, aka: ‘The Diary of a Self-Deploying Human Sandbag In The Culture War”
I went to the INB Theater, sat in the front row and waited. The long discussion of the Official Hugo Asshole Disks led things off. The Sasquan chair reminded people that “No Award” was an option. David and Tananarive did a lovely job, and covered for a few gaffes from script pages not turning, and tried to keep it fun. I’ve been a master of ceremonies; I’m not going to rag on them for it.
Best Related Works came up. It went to No Award; I expected that. I didn’t expect the loud and raucous cheering, which, frankly, pissed me off.
Then Best Short Story came up. It also went to No Award. The cheering was even louder.
Then Best Editor, Short Form went to No Award and the cheering was deafening. There were several people who said “Fuck this…that’s not right…” when that happened, down in the nominee area. David heard it; he quickly looked over the orchestra pit to see what was going on.
Then Best Editor, Long Form went to No Award, and the cheering made the floor tremble. Several people (myself included) started booing. David said “booing is not appropriate” and I came about a half-second away from standing up and jumping on the stage to grab the mic. Bryan Thomas Schmidt DID get up and curse loudly. Toni Weisskopf apparently never went to the ceremony at all; per Bryan the two of them commiserated for a few hours after the ceremony.
Best Novelette went to an actual winner, best Novella got No Awarded (but with less cheering), and Best Novel got a Hugo. I made a point of personally congratulating all of the Hugo winners when I found them on Sunday.
Words cannot describe how furious I was at the outcome at the time. I sat in the theater after the lights came up. I had a brief conversation with political pundit (and fabricator of the Hugo Asshole Disks) Jim Wright. He agreed with why I was angry: Cheering for No Award (and cheering loudly) was beyond the bounds of acceptable behavior.
For a ceremony that promised to be about inclusion and “we’re all fandom,” having the master of ceremonies feed off the cheering for No Award? That’s very easy to take as hypocrisy of the first order. I’ve also been told, multiple times that SF readers are NOT FANDOM…and that’s part of the problem. Seeing “No Award” blow out candidates who were clearly meritorious, like Mike Resnick and Toni Weisskopf? With cheers that rattled the rafters and made the floor rumble?
I felt so very included in Fandom then. Really.
(8) Meg Frank discusses why she resigned as a Sasqan committee member in response to the handling of the Antonelli letter to the Spokane cops and what he wrote about Carrie Cuinn.
It is common knowledge at this point that Lou Antonelli wrote a letter to the Spokane PD. It is also known that he went on Sarah Hoyt’s podcast and bragged about it. While many were rightly focused on David Gerrold’s reaction, the simple fact is that he wasn’t the only person harassed and intimidated, and he wasn’t the only one to report it. As the Co-Director of the Hugo Ceremony I reported my fear directly to my superiors. I did so several times – initially rather timidly because I didn’t want to make a fuss, but later rather firmly in a way that could not be misunderstood. One of the vice-chairs, Glenn Glazer, attempted to guilt me into not pursuing the complaint, and one of the Operations Division Heads, Robbie Bourget told me flat out that I hadn’t been harassed. When I pointed this out to them, I was told that I hadn’t ever made an official harassment complaint and lots of sarcasm that wasn’t in any way close to appropriate.
Senior members of the Sasquan committee responded to a member reporting harassment and asking for help with guilt trips, denial, victim blaming, sarcasm and dismissal.
In the interest of avoiding a he said/she said situation, I have PDFd all of the emails in this conversation and placed them in a Google Drive folder here:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B-XkKq2NGWUZV21ubUpYOVhtOHM
[Frank has since created an alternate address because people said they could see all the emails — https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B-XkKq2NGWUZfkEzMlNwMGl3amVndzZ1MmxmakhHUHpEdzJRNG1BOVNRYlBJZEZsd1dPT00&usp=drive_web.]
After a fair bit of crying, some time spent on the phone with Jill, and lunch with a good friend, I decided to resign. I cannot ever in good conscience support a committee that treats its members this way. Any member, including committee members and staff, should feel able to report violations of the code of conduct and be taken seriously.
(9) Cat Valente sets the record straight in a comment on File 770:
I can knock this one down:
>I saw George R.R. Martin declare that all Puppies were Rabid at his party, and hoped that his alternate awards would’t be needed in the future, and more or less cheered for fandom holding off the barbarians. You know, people like me.
I was at the party, and as usual there is a tiny bit of truth in the wreckage of honesty on display.
George did indeed talk at length in the lead up to his announcing the Alfies. Most of it was on the history of the Hugo rocket as a hood ornament and the early days of the Hugo Losers Party that, you know, he invented. When it came time to say something about why he went and dug up old hood ornaments to make awards out of, he did say that he hoped the awards would be the first and last Alfies given out–because he hoped that next year would be a normal Hugos with a fair ballot. He absolutely did not say “all Puppies are Rabid” or anything of the kind. And he did not “more or less” praise fandom for holding off barbarians. You can tell by the “more or less” that this part is complete bullshit.
George Martin has advocated against No Award since day one of this mess. He was sad and hurt and astonished by the vitriol like we all have been, but he in no way presented the No Award result as a victory, (why would he, since he didn’t want No Award to take the night) nor the Alfies as the “real award” in any way. Rather, he emphasized that this was all his opinion and his party and his decision, his “grand and futile gesture.” His exact words were: “And yes, there are committee awards, but I am the committee.”
(10) This sounds terrifying.
This just in: @UrsulaV will be host of the Corny Awards. My scarecrow army is collecting her now. YOU'RE ALL NOMINEES.
— Seanan McGuire (@seananmcguire) August 28, 2015
(11) Gary K. Wolfe in the Chicago Tribune – “Hugo Awards: Rabid Puppies defeat reflects growing diversity in science fiction”
Following the official awards ceremony, Martin hosted a huge party in a landmark mansion, during which he presented his own “Alfie Awards,” named after science fiction writer Alfred Bester, to several candidates who, according to the final vote tallies, would have been on the Hugo ballot but were bumped by the Puppy slates. The Alfies, made from actual old automobile hood ornaments (which earlier Hugo trophies were said to resemble), also went to Puppy-slate authors who had withdrawn their own nominations, giving up a chance at a Hugo rather than being associated with the Puppies and with slate voting, and to Eric Flint, a novelist who — although he is popular among many Puppies — had posted insightful critical commentary on the controversy during the summer.
Martin clearly viewed the Hugo results as a dramatic victory for fandom and for the science fiction community at large, and made the point, shared by many in the aftermath of the awards ceremony, that in the end the controversy—inevitably dubbed “Puppygate” — represented not a divided science fiction community, but rather a surprisingly united one, and one which chooses to celebrate diversity rather than to view it as a conspiratorial threat. The Puppies themselves — some of whom have since claimed victory simply by forcing the “no awards” votes — may or may not return next year, when Worldcon is in Kansas City. But some estimates have them at no more than 10 percent to 20 percent of this year’s voting, and since the huge membership of the Spokane Worldcon — over 11,000, including non-attending members — provides an enormous base for next year’s nominations, it likely will be more of an uphill battle against a broader community that has already rejected them once and that will not as easily again be taken by surprise.
The final irony in all this is that the Hugo Awards, while more diverse and international in recent years, have never really disdained the kind of adventure fiction that the Puppies claim to champion. I met the winning novelist, Cixin Liu, when he was in Chicago earlier this year, and he made it clear that his idols are classic writers like Robert A. Heinlein and Isaac Asimov. “The Three-Body Problem” itself concerns communications with an alien race, the Trisolarans, whose plan is to invade the Earth as a refuge for their own endangered civilization — surely one of the oldest plots in science fiction. John Scalzi, who became one of the chief targets of Puppy vituperation, is a white male who won the Hugo in 2013 for “Redshirts,” a space opera adventure with knowing references to “Star Trek.” Among the novellas bumped off the ballot this year by the Puppy slate was Nancy Kress’ “Yesterday’s Kin,” a well-written tale that begins with an alien spaceship parking itself over New York harbor.
The problem, I suspect, is that none of these works are only about revisiting these favored old tropes. Sometimes they satirize them (as with Scalzi). Sometimes they introduce political themes (as with Cixin Liu, whose novel opens with a harrowing account of China’s Cultural Revolution). Sometimes they focus on character and family relationships (as with Kress). What seems to threaten the Puppies is not that science fiction has forsaken its origins (which it clearly hasn’t), but that readers have come to expect more and to welcome different voices. The old-fashioned modes of space adventure and military science fiction still have substantial markets, but it’s probably true that such works show up less on Hugo or Nebula award ballots than their supporters would like.
(12) Olivia Geng on the Wall Street Journal – “Cixin Liu Becomes First Asian to Win Hugo Award for Science Fiction”
Chinese author Cixin Liu last weekend became the first Asian to win the Hugo Award for best science fiction or fantasy novel. Yet to hear the Shaanxi native tell it, making history pales in comparison to the importance of ensuring science fiction’s future in China.
“I don’t really have any special feeling about it,” Mr. Liu said by phone from his hometown in Yangquan, Shaanxi province, when asked about becoming the first Asian to win the prize in its 62-year history.
“The Hugo Awards are not well-known in China,” he added. “It still cannot change the recent receding popularity of science fiction in China. All I can do is try my best and write as many good sci-fi works as I can.”
(13) R. S. Benedict on Unicorn Booty – “Sorry, Sad Puppies: Science Fictuion Has Always Been Political”
If Mary Shelley was science fiction’s mother, its father was probably H. G. Wells. His many works have been imitated, copied and adapted over and over again. Were H. G. Wells alive today, the Sad Puppies would probably despise him. He was a socialist who believed in racial diversity — a very controversial view in the 19th century.
But, the Sad Puppies might argue, as long as he kept his politics out of his writing, it wouldn’t be a problem. The problem with sci-fi writers is that they insist in letting their politics shape their stories.
Bad news, guys: H. G. Wells’s works were all about politics.
The War of the Worlds was Wells’s reaction to Western imperialism. Unlike many of his countrymen, he believed that Great Britain did not have a God-given right to invade and conquer other nations in Africa and the Pacific. The War of the Worlds was his way of saying to England, “How would you like it if someone did that to you?” He explicitly spells out his point in the novel: ….
(14) Aya de Leon – “The Hugo Awards, Social Justice, and the Psychoanalytics of Genre”
In many ways, the Hugo battle has been inevitable. It’s been coming since the US ended the era of legal racial segregation and began to question strict gender roles. In the latter case, young women have historically been pressured to read materials that reinforced their domestic roles. They weren’t supposed to be concerned with what happened outside their door in this world, let alone be concerned about what was happening in other worlds. But in the 70s and 80s, women SFF writers have developed a strong body of work in the genre and beyond, exploring issues of gender and developing wide readership.
For people of color, prior to integration, SFF was for white people. However, in the 70s and 80s, an early vanguard of black SFF writers began to integrate the genre. During that time, a relatively small number of people of color would read SFF (sometimes—prior to the internet—they were completely unaware of the POC who were writing it). The readership was primarily those of us with white friends, at white schools, or in white communities. Not surprising that SFF themes of alienation or actual aliens spoke to many of us.
(15) jaythenerdkid on The Rainbow Hub – “The Hugo Awards Controversy and Sci-Fi’s Diversity Problem”
The Sad Puppy vision for the Hugo Awards is one where nominations are a meritocracy (where people who write innovatively about gender, sexuality, race and other social issues are considered without merit). The Sad Puppy method of achieving this vision involves harassing everyone who doesn’t agree with them, because their arguments can’t actually stand on merit. They’ve even run afoul of George R. R. Martin, who is about as establishment as it gets in contemporary fantasy (I mean, one of his heroines is a literal white saviour in a land full of brown savages, yikes!), which means they’re now very much persona non grata in the SF/F community, something they’ve decided is a badge of honour rather than a damning condemnation of their beliefs and tactics.
That’s all well and good, but the fact that the Puppies got as far as they did – completely rigging five categories so that the only nominees were of their choosing, and skewing several others so there were very few choices who weren’t theirs – says a lot about a community that’s always inhabited a curious place halfway between insular and inviting, inflexible and innovative. It’s strange to think that the Hugo Awards, which have honoured legends like Ursula K. LeGuin and Octavia Butler, were turned into a farcical man-child temper tantrum by a bunch of jilted former nominees who wanted to ruin everyone else’s fun. At the same time, it makes perfect sense coming from a community that can accept the War of the Roses with dragons, but not making a fictional god female. There’s always been this element in the fandom of people – mostly men, mostly cis, mostly straight, mostly white, mostly middle-class, mostly college-educated – who think escapism and adventure stop being fun once politics that don’t agree with their own are introduced. (They’re fine, of course, with the hard-right libertarian politics of works like Ender’s Game or the oeuvre of Terry Goodkind.) The internet has enabled these squeaky wheels, giving them wider platforms and the ability to organise their bullying and harassment.
(16) Joe Vasicek on One Thousand and One Parsecs – “The Decline and Fall of Fandom and the Hugo Awards”
Can the Hugo Awards be saved? I seriously doubt it. The “truefans” will jealously clutch it to their chests until they die, and with the graying of fandom, that will probably be accomplished fairly soon. But just as the Renaissance rose from the long-cold ashes of the Roman Empire, so too I hope that something good will eventually come out of all of this. Because really, there is a place in fandom (lower-case f) for everyone, and that has never changed.
(17) Creative Bloq – “Hugo Award-winning artist reveals her secrets to success”
Here, Elizabeth reveals her top tips for fantasy and sci-fi artists who want to get noticed…
01. Community
Search out art communities, locally and web-based. We are a reasonably small set of artists in the grand scheme of things and it becomes really easy to see all of the connections and overlaps.
Personally, I highly recommend ArtOrder. Jon Schindehette is a huge advocate for artists in general and ArtOrder is his baby.
02. Professionality
Be professional. Always, always, always make deadline. READ YOUR CONTRACTS.
03. Exceed Expectations
Strive to make your art director look awesome through giving them great work. One of the bits of advice I follow is do not create illustration you feel simply reflects your payment.
Always try to exceed their expectations. It may only be a $100 contract, but your work should look like you were paid $500. The internet is forever. Your work is you.
(18) Natalie Luhrs on Pretty Terrible – “No More Memory Holes”
So remember how Sasquan decided that even though Lou Antonelli violated their Code of Conduct they weren’t going to enforce the Code of Conduct because David Gerrold didn’t want them to? Turns out that Gerrold wasn’t the only one feeling harassed and intimidated–and he wasn’t the only one to report it.
Meg Frank, the Events Deputy Division Head also reported same against Lou Antonelli and was told by the head of operations, Robbie Bourget, that she had not been harassed and one of the vice-chairs, Glenn Glazer, attempted to guilt her into backing down. Instead of backing down, Meg Frank resigned a week before the convention. Frank has provided a PDF of emails to back up her assertions.
I wish I could say I was surprised, but I’m not. Here are a some screencaps from the Journeymen of Fandom group on Facebook in which it is clear that Robbie Bourget sees the rehabilitation of offenders back into community as a higher priority than attendee safety….
(19) Juliette Wade on TalkToYoUniverse – “My new SF/F Reading Journal for next year’s Hugos”
I have been inspired by this year’s Hugos.
It’s become clear to me, as perhaps it has to many others, that entrusting my opinions of the latest genre works to others to nominate for awards is not enough any more.
One might ask: why haven’t I done the active, thorough job I wanted on nominating? Easy: life. The biggest factor in my failure is my faulty, distracted, non-eidetic memory.
Therefore, I’m starting a reading journal.
Essentially, I am a very busy person (as many are), and I can’t always call to mind every story I’ve read in a year, even the good ones. From now on, every time I read a story in the field, or a brilliant article, etc. I’ll be writing down title, author, and publication
(20) Cat Rambo on The World Remains Mysterious – “My Report from Sasquan: Mostly Glorious and So Many Thank Yous”
Met up with Mike Resnick, who has appeared on the Hugo ballot a breathtaking 37 times, winning 5, after the panel. We ventured out into the hazy afternoon along the riverwalk to talk about some SFWA stuff and came out of that excited about some prospects. I’m a longtime fan of Mike’s, not just of his excellent work, but of the way he helps newer writers, consistently extending a hand by collaborating with or publishing them. As SFWA President, I’m trying to make sure that the org’s moving forward in a way that makes (almost) everyone happy, so I wanted to talk about how we could use some of SFWA’s new marketing resources to help with the committee that Mike has ably headed for so long, the Anthology Committee. I’m looking forward to working with him on the SFWA projects we discussed.
[Thanks to Mark Dennehy, Ann Somerville, and John King Tarpinian for some of these links.]
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Here in Hawaii Portuguese were brought in for fieldworkers (and bosses of fieldworkers) and because of that laborer past get lumped into ‘locals’ who can be counted as non-whites (and we have Portagee jokes instead of Polish jokes).
Whereas my friends in Boston talk about illegal Portuguese immigrants (who come to see relatives and just stay because they look like the white population… its the same with Irish illegals).
I don’t think it is being used a cudgel here.
When Eastercon first started considering the issues of harassment, we had a panel about it. On the panel was a fan whose name I won’t mention because I understand he had acquired a clue since.
But, quite apart from the fact that he kept referring to women as “ladies” throughout, he seemed genuinely puzzled about what harassment was, and said he had asked a friend of his for advice. The friend of his was a transport policeman, and he basically said, “Look mate, I deal with actual rape every day. Anything that does not qualify as rape or assault does not exist in my book.” So this fan concluded that we didn’t need an harassment policy because we had laws against that kind of thing, innit.
Needless to say, the panel audience heaved a collective sigh on hearing this, and put its head in its hands.
What I am getting at is that harassment policies cover things that are not covered by criminal law, and I would say that writing to the police telling them that a guest of the convention is dangerous is the most bloody serious violation of any possible harassment policy I can imagine.
They are also not – AFAIK – intended as punishment for the person violating it, they are intended as safeguards. The idea is that people who might create an unwelcoming environment are removed from the convention, allowing people to feel safe.
YAY!
My husband is both Latino and Hispanic, as his grandfather is from Mexico, and the heritage is an important part of his father’s side of the family. We celebrate Cinco de Mayo, Dia de los Muertos, and a few other lesser known holidays with good cheer (for the record, I am not from his ethnic group, I am a white girl with a smidge of non-white descent that I will not claim in an effort to seem less-white, but I do celebrate his heritage and enjoy the parties.)
He is also white. You might remember George Zimmerman being referred to as “white hispanic,” and so is my husband. He’s half white, easily passes, and understands that he accrues all the privilege of whiteness. He is not offended by being called either white, latino, hispanic or Mexican-American, as they are all accurate as far as he’s concerned.
I realize he and his family are just a single data point, but it’s possible to acknowledge and love your heritage while still accepting that as far as the rest of the world cares, you’re white. Hoyt is beating people over the head with her supposed non-whiteness, and as far as I can tell, for nothing more than to play the victim and deny her privilege.
On a completely unrelated note: having a problem with the Stylish coding. I copied it exactly from the earlier examples, and the one Tegan posted at her blog, but it doesn’t work consistently. Brian Z is completely whited out, but other posters on the same list are only hazy. I have no clue why that is, so if anyone can help me that would be great.
img[src*=”f471cb2b73b662a4ce3b7200cc03d5c4″] + span::after, /* aeou */
img[src*=”a9bea8198715ed10882ecba7c7adaf37″] + span::after, /* Brian Z */
img[src*=”b4826f3f85672c6eb0fef5c6c681cfd5″] + span::after, /* Brian Z */
img[src*=”1809acffb3d75c834d1d3b7b2074ec8c”] + span::after, /* Brian Z */
img[src*=”fad7ef8c84a0040340dfea31d68febbc”] + span::after, /* Buwaya */
img[src*=”6652aa39e160911069a5ff8ead2836ff”] + span::after, /* Curtis */
img[src*=”b6870612937d008cb0ef5566b9c70478″] + span::after, /* David Lang */
img[src*=”3312d8980edcfa6cb9bf67de82b6c6c2″] + span::after, /* idontknow */
img[src*=”a7c666dc1899357bf1979391a0d524f3″] + span::after, /* James M. */
img[src*=”062053c8d5bc0197ffd7712dbffe5ed8″] + span::after, /* Patrick May */
img[src*=”a82408eae1ac7ba92f68ba22d0928907″] + span::after, /* RAH */
img[src*=”8471db4b6a6eae7d874f9fc4c640d90d”] + span::after, /* Tuomas Vainio */
img[src*=”5ba855e22ecd57acb5c6bc87141eeb33″] + span::after, /* Scott Malcomson */
img[src*=”6d8afe97d98391250312b153471e6a8c”] + span::after, /* VD */
img[src*=”eb5d17de779315868c7446855a72dbe0″] + span::after, /* Viktor */
img[src*=”8da6cfe7b14ed5cb9ee6f987afbc0951″] + span::after, /* xdpaul */
a[href*=”caninedaze”]::after { /* Brian Z */
content: “”;
position: absolute;
top: 0;
left: 0;
width: 100%;
height: 100%;
background-color: whitesmoke;
opacity: .7;
pointer-events: none;
}
Gabriel F: Looking at the code you posted, it appears as if some of the double-quotes are ‘straight’ and others are ‘curly”. Try search-and-replace on the relevant characters?
All the quotes have been properly changed in the actual Stylish, for some reason it just doesn’t copy well back and forth.
Gabriel F, the only thing that I can see is that your quote marks are non matching (I think).
If you have a text editor that can change smart quotes for dumb quotes, use that. Or turn off smart quotes in word and manually replace them.
The text below has the quotes fixed.ETA: No, WP changes them.Department of Puppy Projection, Part #5,271,009:
“Crazy Uncle Lou” Antonelli – talking about his experience at the Hugo ceremony – recently posted the following little nugget:
Given his recent behavior (…calling a poster’s place of employment, writing to the Spokane police, etc.) – one doesn’t have to squint very hard at that remark before it reads as a direct threat. (He’s SURE that would have happened.)
Hmmm. Next possibility: Try copying the code from within Stylish to a word-processing window, and set it to a font which will make it obvious which double-quotes are ‘straight’ and which are ‘curly’?
@Anna Feruglio Dal Dan What I am getting at is that harassment policies cover things that are not covered by criminal law, and I would say that writing to the police telling them that a guest of the convention is dangerous is the most bloody serious violation of any possible harassment policy I can imagine.
This wouldn’t be covered by criminal law, but it is a tort, covered by civil law. Gerrold only chose to downplay the incident in the interests of harmony at the conference. Clearly he had no difficulty in feeling “safe” with Antonelli there.
Frank’s entry into the “harassment” complaint certainly adds to the complexity of the situation, as she seemed to eventually arrive at the point of saying Antonelli made “her” feel unsafe. Still, she apparently couldn’t pin this feeling down well enough to file a formal complaint.
@’As You Know’ Bob “Crazy Uncle Lou” Antonelli – talking about his experience at the Hugo ceremony – recently posted the following little nugget; However, I’m sure had any Sad Puppies won any Hugos Saturday night, a bomb threat would have cleared out the performance hall in ten minutes.
And given his behavior, LA was THE most likely person at Sasquan to do such a thing.
Which is apparently why they wanted him where they could watch him.
How would that have changed her status in your mind?
She was a committee member registering her views with the top leadership of the committee. The people who would have addressed a formal complaint were already interacting with her. Surely you aren’t arguing that they would have given it more weight if she had stuck in one of those emails “This is a formal complaint”?
Also something the Puppies (and frankly a lot of folks) don’t understand is that “white” isn’t an insult and should not be considered one. It’s just a fact. People freak out about the power/privilege that being white entails on a systemic level and think that “people should feel guilty about being white.” It’s ridiculous. It’s just a fact of our culture that we need to try and fix. No one should be ashamed of their heritage – or be shamed for it.
‘As You Know’ Bob: The membership list in MidAmeriCon II’s first progress report doesn’t contain Antonelli’s name. I wonder if they’re wise enough to return his check if he tries to join.
I would’t presume that Gerrold “had no problem feeling safe.” He chose to act in the way he best thought would promote harmony, but given his reaction to Antonelli approaching him it’s clear he was not ok with the guy.
People of, say, Brazillian or Portuguese ancestry in the US are Lusófonos, and since that’s not a common English word, is not used by the US Census, etc., what would you like to call them in English? Some have argued that Hispanic is an imperfect category for this purpose, but under the US classifications a good number of Brazillian-Americans and Portuguese-Americans would choose to identify as Hispanic. So other than “you’re white, get over it,” are there any arguments why Portuguese-Americans should not be permitted to declare themselves Hispanic or Latino? What are they?
Assuming that Ms Frank is a resident of the state of Washington, her perspective on harassment and the Antonelli letter, under law, may be different than that of some of the F770 commenters.
WA state laws regarding harassment, stalking, assault, retaliation, whistle-blowing, et cetera, are more liberal (or restrictive, if you are of a libertarian bent) than many other US states, and interpretation of the Regulatory Codes of WA is guided by local custom and culture, as is law in any municipality.
Under WA law, one has as much a duty to report harassment, suspected harassment, or concern (especially with cause) that a person might commit bodily harm to third person, as to report fear of harm to oneself. Many of the relevant codes are primarily exercised in domestic abuse and celebrity stalking cases, but they can and are applied elsewhere.
There is a direct correlation between the Codes of WA regarding stalking, harassment, intimidation, et alia, and the number of celebrities and/or very high-profile people who choose to live extremely quietly in our state, especially when not actively promoting a current project. You don’t hear about paparazzi chasing Bill Gates or Chris Cornell down their streets, because it never, ever happens. The press didn’t even show up for Lady Gaga’s attempted circus at Pike Place Market, a while back; Ms Gaga apparently wasn’t informed by her people that it’s illegal to record someone in this state w/o their express permission (exceptions being areas surrounded with signs saying that filming is taking place, for example film shoots, which are heavily signed.)
For these reasons, Mr Antonelli’s letter is much more likely to have been flagged as stalking of Mr Gerrold, than as sincere concern by a citizen in regards to Mr Gerrold’s behavior at the con. A brief glance at their relative social media presences would have confirmed each man’s role in the matter. Had Sasquan had chosen to rescind Mr Antonelli’s membership, or to give Mr Antonelli a warning and alert the local PD of the situation, those choices would have been consistent with state law both under Code and custom.
If Mr Antonelli had chosen to escalate, either of the above decisions by the committee would have absolved Sasquan of a degree of liability for related damage to persons, property, brand, or reputation. The decision the committee did make was probably the worst of those available, according to what I know of this specific set of events. I was not an involved party, so cannot speak definitively. [Obviously.]
{ I am, in all modesty, a skilled faux-lawyer, one of the finest at settling out of court, today. }
Mike Glyer on August 29, 2015 at 11:40 pm said:
From now on, all concoms can be classed in one of two categories: Either they regard Antonelli as that asshole who tried to SWAT a Worldcon GoH and act accordingly, or they’re dyed-in-the-wool Pups. Does any third category pass the sniff test?
“Does any third category pass the sniff test?”
They’ve never heard of him? Given that 90% of the WorldCon membership probably hasn’t, and Antonelli’s nonsense has only been discussed in a limited part of the blogosphere, why assume universal knowledge?
Mintwich: All that erudition is impressive, but possibly misplaced, because the Spokane PD was the recipient of his letter, and was in contact with the committee about it. If any law enforcement was supposed to happen, it would have.
Yeah, WP changes quotes, so it’s not much use for debugging.
But I did reproduce Brian Z being lighter than the others, and when I took the href line out he went back to normal – I don’t know css, but could it be applying the opacity to him twice, one for the img test and one for the href?
You are mistaken this term refers to Portuguese speakers not to ancestry.
Jamoche,
Does that make me a “double-puppy”?
Maybe the coders can develop an algorithm to impartially white out the comments by people who share several beliefs while still allowing the most popular beliefs to appear. In fact, that cries out for its own File 770 discussion thread.
Gabriel, I have uploaded a cleaned up version of your file here
http://blog.logophilos.net/wp-content/uploads/script.txt.zip
I have tested it and it works. Hope this helps
@Mike Glyer Still, she apparently couldn’t pin this feeling down well enough to file a formal complaint.
How would that have changed her status in your mind?
She was a committee member registering her views with the top leadership of the committee. The people who would have addressed a formal complaint were already interacting with her. Surely you aren’t arguing that they would have given it more weight if she had stuck in one of those emails “This is a formal complaint”?
Yes, I do expect she would have gotten more definite results with a formal complaint on her own behalf. Once a formal complaint is filed, then there should be automatic procedures in place for investigation and decision. It looks like the procedure was followed in the Gerrold case, which indicates it’s there. It may not have changed the results, as the committee was balancing other interests, but it should have gotten her a formal hearing.
It’s been a few hours since I read through the emails, so I’m relying on imperfect memory here. My impression was that the issues seemed unclear to the different parties. At first it appears that her co-worker thinks she wants to discuss the Gerrold decision. As it continues and he realizes she is talking about herself, he asks about filing a formal complaint. I couldn’t see where she ever said she wanted to do this. That makes it difficult for him to move on her complaints.
Simeon Beresford,
That’s an interesting topic to think about and discus. Maybe we can start with what Portuguese speakers think about “Lusofonia.”
https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lusofonia
Lusofonia é o conjunto de algumas identidades culturais existentes em países, regiões, estados ou cidades falantes da língua portuguesa como Angola, Brasil, Cabo Verde, Guiné-Bissau, Macau, Moçambique, Portugal, São Tomé e Príncipe, Timor-Leste, Goa, Damão e Diu e por diversas pessoas e comunidades em todo o mundo.
https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ficheiro:Map_of_the_portuguese_language_in_the_world.svg
That’s a cultural identity. How do you translate that into American classifications that focus on “race”? It is a serious question.
@Anna Feruglio Dal Dan:
The more interesting sorts of history books say that this was not always true of many such national-origin groups, such as for example the Irish immigrants.
Reminds me: In Lou Antonelli’s writings, he refers to himself as ‘first-generation American’ because his parents immigrated from Italy and then birthed and raised him in the USA. Hey, Lou: ‘First-generation’ means immigrant. You’re off by one, sir.
Closed adoptions can pose interesting white-or-not questions, for those who care: Kinship/upbringing, mostly-unknown-to-the-person genetic descent, and phenotype may point in different directions.
@Gabriel F. I would’t presume that Gerrold “had no problem feeling safe.” He chose to act in the way he best thought would promote harmony, but given his reaction to Antonelli approaching him it’s clear he was not ok with the guy.
Was it a safety issue, though? Or just annoyance? Gerrold said Antonelli invited him out for a beer, and that he might eventually get around to it, just not right then.
“could it be applying the opacity to him twice, one for the img test and one for the href?”
No, it’s not doing that. Having checked it, I’m sure it’s something to do with the quote marks, since making sure all of them are ‘dumb’ quotes was the only change I made, and it now works.
@Gabriel F.:
Amen, bro’. If you rejoice every time you fly through Hawaii because you can stock up on SPF 70 sunscreen (your residence being at the same sunny latitude as Sicily and Gibraltar), you are probably Mr. or Ms. Whitey. Some of us know this from looking in the mirror (even products of closed adoption, as am I). With usual advantages attached thereto.
However, when my co-worker Sergio says ‘you white guys’, I tend to say ‘You know, Sergio, I actually self-identify as Norwegian.’ Respect for what people want to call themselves is also a thing worth considering.
R Flaum:
…that from a distance look like flies?
—
On the Stylish thing: I don’t know if this is a problem for anyone but me, but I use NoScript and Ghostery quite aggressively in Firefox. Both add-ons forbid Gravatar in order to speed up page loading. This does not, as you might expect, completely disable the gravatar id powered kill file, because *most* posts still manage to show up with an empty image square to the left which has the gravatar id in its image source. Those posts are successfully filtered by the script, while posts which appear without a blank square where their gravatar should be do not get filtered.
Not sure if that bears any relevance to Gabriel’s current problem, but it’s a data point that might help someone out.
EDIT: I see from the cross-posts that signs point to curly quotes being the culprit for Gabriel after all. Nevermind!
Ann Somerville, Nicole J. LeBoeuf-Little, are you trying to sway the CSS-leaning Neutrals?
At this point, sorry, I have to reiterate that a resident of Hawaii literally just said:
(After reading further upthread:)
Gabriel F.: I hope you’ll take “bro'” in a good way. Sororal will also do! Or other honorific indicating fellow-feeling.
Irmã?
Godel stalk?
Ann Somerville on August 29, 2015 at 11:59 pm said:
Please note that I specifically mentioned concoms. Those fen who serve on convention committees make up rather less than 10% of the greater fannish community, and compared to J. Random Fan-in-the-street, concom members tend to be self-selected for being much more likely to care about Potential Con-Disruptions.
So, okay, if you want to say there’s one member of a concom who has no clue what Antonelli did, maybe so. But all members of that same concom? All of them, ignorant of what Antonelli did? Not so much. Certainly, anyone who buys “maybe none of them knew” is accepting the short end of a bet.
I thought you might Russell up a good pun.
So just to re-post, Tegans compilation of the various killfile / highlight codes are here:
http://realtegan.blogspot.com/p/file770-stuff.html
If you’re using Stylish, you can use the following link in Userstyles.org to install the killfile automatically:
https://userstyles.org/styles/118122/aan-s-plonk-file-script
Charon D: I feel similarly, but I think I was more focused on voting against slating. Why were these editors on this slate? Why didn’t they object, like Bellet and Kloos, or thank the puppies and encourage their holy war? Are they puppy relatives, or do they hang out target shooting and swapping Chicom jokes with puppies? Have they actually edited puppies’ work, and did any of them have a hand in work I particularly love/despise? The fact they were even on a slate raised suspicion, so I voted against the idea of slates.
The reality is that the people in the Long/Short Form Editor ballot categories pretty much fell into 2 categories: Editors with a long, highly-esteemed record, and Puppy buddies. One of those editors happened to be both.
The editors with long, highly esteemed records are pretty much in a class with Guardians of the Galaxy and the other Dramatic Presentation entries which were on a slate; they don’t need to dissociate themselves from the slate because their bona-fides are way bigger than the slate (although Mike Resnick did come right out and say, “I just found out this morning that I was listed on the Rabid Puppies slate. For the record, I was never asked, and never consented, to have my name connected with it, and indeed consider Vox Day one step, either direction, from certifiable.“)
And of course the editors who made the ballot only because they were Puppy buddies certainly weren’t going to bite the paw that was feeding them a chance at a Hugo they would not have other wise received.
@Mike Glyer: Eh. I work in liability, not law enforcement. I tend to default to “belt and suspenders,” especially where the general public/public events may be concerned. But again, not an involved party, and not consulted.
I’ve only worked on one (4 events, one organization) fan convention; most of my events have been specifically professional affairs, in male dominated industries. The ’90s saw some really unpleasant incidents, followed by really deeply unpleasant backing and filling in attempts to cover or minimize the breadth and depth of the problem. These days, those same events have zero-tolerance, no exceptions rules, even (or perhaps especially) if a GOH/keynote buffs for the offender. Overall, I think it’s an improvement, but there were a few years of whining about no more bikini-clad “hostesses” at official events by various and sundry.
It helps that insurance companies have also moved away from covering the aftermath to prevention and policy-clauses.
Thanks!
And – neither, it turns out. Since you ask, here’s the second, longer draft.
Now on the occasion I now bring to light
Almost nothing had happened for nearly a night
(And that’s a long time for a Paulk or a Wright)
The big GRRM was away from his beat –
I don’t know the reason, but most people think
He was paying the bill for his Alfies and drinks –
And no-one at all was about in the street
When a Sad and a Rabid Pup happened to meet.
They did not advance, or exactly retreat
They just glared at the signs that announced their defeat,
And started to bark, bark, bark, bark, bark, bark, bark, BARK,
Until you could hear them all over the park!
And then all the Pups, when they heard the uproar,
Some came to the window, some came to the door,
(There were surely a dozen, more likely a score)
And together they started to grumble and rant
In their huffery, puffery, indignant chant.
The Sads and the Rabids, no longer aloof,
But some from the balcony, some from the roof,
Joined into the din with a bark, bark, bark, bark, bark, bark, bark, BARK,
Until you could hear them all over the park!
Then what should emerge with the internet’s faith
But the great EPH!
Its math was like diamonds, cheerfully blazing.
It brought about change, and the change was amazing.
And when it stepped out with the votes of the meeting,
You never saw anything fiercer against cheating.
And what with the glare of its math and the meeting
The Pups knew the chance of slate Hugos was fleeting.
It looked to Helsinki and gave a great leap
And they, every last one of them, scattered like sheep.
So when GRRM returned to his beat
There wasn’t a single Pup left in the street!
Just clicking the box. Nothing to see here, move along.
@Brian Z: My understanding of the race-boxes in the US (as a non-american) is that ‘hispanic’ is an ‘optional extra’, independent of the rest of the classification scheme: one can be hispanic and white, hispanic and black, etc. If the portugese community is tight enough knit, large enough to justify counting, but ‘racially’ diverse enough to avoid fitting into a box, that would be the obvious solution.
Most places I’ve lived have ‘tick all that apply’, instead….
Lusofonia is so diverse that there is no solution within the US-style classifications – there are lots of connections between Portugal and Brazil, and how to handle Timor-Leste? Mozambique? etc. etc. – and I gather the US government considered creating a new classification then decided against it. Your point is important – Latino or Hispanic is a cultural category, not a racial one. I found an interesting 2013 blog post by Hoyt – I put it on the next thread.
This is an example of something expressed by several people:
You probably don’t mean it that way, but you come awfully close to saying that any kind of police report is harassment.
And I want to point out: No, it’s not. A legitimate police report is not harassment, and should never, ever, be seen as harassment.
A while ago I came across comments (from a certain large squirrel) along the line of “let’s see how tough you are when I show up at your door with a gun.” If that had been said to me, by someone living in reasonable travelling distance, I would have seriously considered reporting it to the police as threats. And hell if I’m going to accept a con harassment policy saying I shouldn’t because doing so would be “harassment” of the person making those remarks.
IMNSHO the discussions on Antonelli is drifting unpleasantly close to a rule of “never, under any circumstances, involve the police”. This is a dangerous sentiment, and one that in the long run is more likely to benefit harassers than victims. Any fan who worries about harassment at cons should take great care to stay away from expressing this.
I doubt anyone here really means that the police should never be called, no matter what happens. So can we please stop discussing Antonelli as if that’s the case?
@BrianZ “Maybe the coders can develop an algorithm to impartially white out the comments by people who share several beliefs while still allowing the most popular beliefs to appear.”
You are confused about other peoples’ motivations again.
They aren’t blocking you because of your puppy beliefs, they are blocking you because you are a liar and an asshole.
For example- they way you just tried to derail the discussion and drag us off into the weeds where you could start implying that the reason people dislike Hoyt isn’t because she is a jerk, but because she believes she is a person of color.
Setting aside that his doesn’t add anything useful to the conversation, it’s almost offensively stupid.
I’m pretty sure that if you started trying to come up with legitimate arguments and actual facts to support your opinions, people would be willing to listen to you again.
It seems to me you are starting to swerve into nasty snarky territory and I don’t really understand why. I can’t say I like it.
It seems to me reading the emails that she had no difficulty pinning down her feelings. I have been the point of contact for the enforcement of the code of conduct for a WorldCon. Part of our brief was that we should not have put people in the situation to decide whether to make a formal complaint or not. We were there to listen and it was up to the convention to be proactive in ensuring that the code of conduct was enforced.
Fuck no, that is in NO WAY what I meant!
Mike, does MidAmeriCon have their detailed policy statements up? My specific question is, what if he wants to join only as a supporting member?